Prof Anton van Niekerk

Anton van Niekerk has supervised 11 completed doctoral and 42 completed masters dissertations. Many of these studies were on medical ethics, particularly relating to HIV and AIDS. In 1996 he was involved in setting up a two-year masters programme in applied ethics. He was instrumental in creating the undergraduate programme in politics, philosophy and economics at Stellenbosch University. Van Niekerk has published 61 articles in accredited scientific journals, 17 books, 41 book chapters, 3 research reports, 28 book discussions and in excess of 80 popular articles. He has published two books and many articles on ethical issues relating to HIV and AIDS, of which the latest is the seminal Ethics and AIDS in Africa: the challenge to our thinking, co-edited with Loretta Kopelman of the USA. Van Niekerk has delivered papers at 28 international and 106 national conferences. He is a member of the executive of the International Research Ethics Network of South Africa (IRENSA) and teaches in the Programme of the Postgraduate Diploma in Research Ethics at the University of Cape Town. He has also been distinguished visiting professor at East Carolina University in the USA, and has recently been invited as distinguished overseas professor in the Erasmus Mundus Postgraduate Applied Ethics program in Europe. Among others, Van Niekerk is a member of the Council of the University of Stellenbosch, chairman of the board of governors of the Ethics Institute of South Africa and member of the ethics committee of the Medical Research Council of South Africa and of the Ethics Committee for Research on Humans Faculty of Health Science at Stellenbosch University. He holds a BA, Hons BA, a BTh, a Licentiate in Theology, an MA and a DPhil from Stellenbosch University.